Good Bones
by OneshotPrincess
Summary: She got like this sometimes, something would remind her of her life before the war. Her face would turn all wistful and sad and MacCready would know that this isn't the life she wanted, that if given the choice she'd never want a life like this in a million years and MacCready would feel so damn inadequate. Or: Nora loves to read. MacCready can't. Insecurities abound.


MacCready didn't really see what the big deal was. To him, it was just a dusty old shelf full of dusty old books that were probably falling apart at the seams and you couldn't sell for caps anyway but Nora was looking at it like it was the second coming of Jesus or something. He hoped she didn't expect him to carry any more shi- stuff on his back but from the looks of it he was fresh outta luck.

Goddamn he loved this woman but there were only so many times he could humor her obsession with picking up every single tin can in the Commonwealth. Nora lifted her hand, then hesitated and the movement caught MacCready's attention.

Oh. Well shoot. Fuck MacCready you idiot! She got like this sometimes, he knew. She looked at something and it would remind her of her life before the war. Her face would turn all wistful and sad and MacCready would know that this isn't the life she wanted, that if given the choice she'd never want a life like this in a million years and he'd feel…MacCready would feel so damn inadequate.

(And he was, wasn't he? MacCready and this whole godforsaken wasteland wasn't good enough, would never be good enough for someone as amazing as Nora)

You know what? Fuck it. He knew he couldn't turn back time and give her the life she should have led but he'd carry every fucking bookshelf out of every single pre-war ruin if it would make Nora just a little bit happier.

Nora's hand finally moved, reached past the dust and the cobwebs to pick out a faded yellow –almost brown- book. He peered over her shoulder. The coloring on the letters was gone but they were embossed on the cover so MacCready bet Nora could still read them.

The picture was a little stranger. It was…a little girl? Yeah it was a little girl. In front of her was the weirdest creature MacCready had ever laid his eyes on. Something like a bird with a giant fuck- freaking head. But wait, if Nora recognized the book it must be Pre-War. Damn they had animals like this back then?

Nora seemed to sense his confusion. "It used to be my favorite book as a kid," she explained. "I borrowed it so many times from the library."

"What's it about?" he asked, curiosity piqued.

Nora's eyes glanced at him briefly before flashing away, making him feel a little warm. Nora used to be a lawyer, he knew, people who used to read books and write crap for a living. And he knew there was nothing wrong with not being able to do the stuff. In the wasteland, being able to fire a gun's a way more important skill. But still, compared to Nora, it was just one of the many ways he felt…lacking.

So yeah, he hadn't exactly told her but he got the feeling she knew anyway. Nora was perceptive like that. She was also good enough not to mention it.

"It's about this girl. She falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange new world where there are no rules and nothing makes any sense," she huffed out a laugh. "She handles it remarkably well."

Oh, Nora.

"I'll bet she does," he answered softly. MacCready put his hands on her hips gingerly but he didn't have to worry. Nora leaned back into his embrace easily enough with her head leaning back against his shoulder. For a moment, there was a heavy silence. Then MacCready let go, slinging off his pack and holding it open for her.

Nora blinked in surprise before looking at him like he'd just hung the fucking moon in the sky, and his heart leapt straight into his throat. Beaming, she put the book inside.

(Along with ten more from the shelf and a couple of others from a few desks and of course the scrap metal. MacCready didn't complain but God did he want to)

* * *

The yellow book ended up waking something in Nora that MacCready wasn't entirely sure he liked. It wasn't strange now to find her curled on the mattress, thumbing gently through a book that's close to falling apart with this look of intense concentration and fondness.

Somehow, it wasn't surprising to find that the woman who could reload a rifle in a second, who stabbed and shot with the best of them, who left bruises on MacCready's hips and scratches on his back could also hold something this reverently. Somehow, he got the feeling that she must have held Shaun like this.

And then there was the matter of the steadily growing pile of dusty, damp books in every corner of their home. There was a lot of painstakingly collecting ruined books now, hoping to piece them together to a whole story. There was a lot of talking now too, mostly to Piper about words and characters that MacCready didn't really give a fuc-crap about (or tried not to at any rate).

And that of course led to MacCready feeling like a total jackass because Christ this was super fuck-frigging important to Nora. He'd noticed her picking up a magazine here and there but how the hell had he never noticed how into it she was?

Maybe it was just that he'd never really had to think about it. Reading just- it wasn't a thing that was necessary to survive in the wasteland. Or even if it was, MacCready'd never needed it. Maybe that was why he'd never paid any attention to it. Or maybe even Nora'd forgotten how important it was to her too.

Either way, he knew that this feeling he was having was just- just stupid. He knew Nora loved him; she didn't leave much room to doubt that. But when he saw her devote herself to something that was so far removed from what he could do and what he could understand, MacCready just couldn't help it: The voice in his head that used to ask 'damn how'd I get so lucky' now looked at her face engrossed in a world he wasn't a part of and asked 'what the fuck does she even see in me?'

Introspection wasn't a thing MacCready did often but dang if it wasn't hitting him hard today.

"Another settlement's in trouble again," he grunted as he collapsed next to her on the mattress.

"Raiders?" she raised her eyes from her book to glance at him questioningly. MacCready snorted. As if Garvey wouldn't be harping all over them if it was that.

"Nah, some water or radiation shit," he mumbled. "Nothing too serious. We can check it out tomorrow."

She nodded, apparently satisfied with his assessment and turned back while MacCready tried his hardest not to be jealous of a thing, come on! He couldn't be this pathetic.

Toeing off his boots, he sighed and buried his face against her side. Before long, her fingers began moving through his hair and he scooted closer, stupidly pleased at having that bit of attention from her. When MacCready glanced back up, Nora's brows were furrowed and her tongue stuck between her teeth, eyes darting back and forth. The sight sent warmth fluttering through him.

MacCready wondered if it was hard, this whole reading thing. Did it come like second nature, the way he could clean a rifle? Or was it harder than that? It seemed to take Nora a lot of concentration. He kind of wanted to ask but it felt like a ridiculous question. So instead he said, "What're you reading?"

"Hmm?" Nora's eyes flicked back to meet his. She seemed surprised for a moment before smiling. "You might like it," she said lightly. "It's about this family that got stranded in an island. So they had to figure out how to survive all on their own."

MacCready blinked. Was…was Nora doing this on purpose or something? He couldn't be the only one who saw this right? She- Whatever, he shook his head. Whatever. He didn't want to open that can of worms right now. "Man, did Pre-War people have a book for everything?"

"Oh Mac," she sighed, rubbing absentmindedly at his scalp. "You have no idea. I practically lived in the library sometimes. They called people like me 'bookworms'. Cause we read so much, see?" Her lips turned downwards into a small frown. "It's not the sort of thing people care about much anymore. So many people probably don't even know what a library is."

MacCready felt something uncomfortable flare up inside him, just like it always did when she talked about her good old days. He wanted to be a part of that, he realized. Of this life that she'd half-lived and no one else understood. He wanted to be the one to understand. He wanted…when she got all nostalgic, he wanted to be someone she could turn to. And he had that more than anyone else but call him a selfish bastard, he wanted to be more.

Turning on his back so that he was no longer pressed against her, he stared at the ceiling. "Little Lamplight didn't have a school or anything," he started uncertainly, wondering if they might actually find some common ground in this, "but some of the older kids used to teach the younger ones stuff like math and writing. I can do the math in my head but the rest…I just never bothered with it."

He could feel the mattress shift as she sat up straighter and he hurried on before she could say something, try to say 'it's okay' or shit like that which was bound to make him feel worse. "Lucy could read though," he swallowed thickly. "She used to read to Duncan sometimes, just bits of magazines or stuff like that. Comics, if we got our hands on 'em"

"Like Grognak the Barbarian?" He could hear the smile in her voice.

"Yeah," he laughed. He remembered Lucy very vividly sometimes. He remembered the cadence of her voice as she talked to Duncan and he remembered just how much he loved listening to it. There hadn't been this heavy self-consciousness with Lucy back then.

"Mostly I, uh, used to make up the stories. In the comics," he clarified when Nora gave him an appraising look. "The words were all faded away most of the times anyway and the pages were missing. So I just told Duncan whatever felt right." MacCready closed his mouth abruptly. Now that the words were out he wasn't sure what exactly he'd been trying to tell Nora. It had just seemed important that she know about this little thing from way back when. That he'd cared about words and stories too.

"I used to read to Shaun too," Nora said after a while in a low voice and MacCready exhaled, relieved that he hadn't made things too awkward or anything like that. "Lots of stories. Every night. Nate usually went to bed earlier than me so it was just the two of us. I wanted…I always thought-"

"Nora?" he peered up to find her face twisted in a grimace. Nora had never really cried in all the time he'd known her but he'd learned to recognize the expressions that meant damn near about the same thing. He sat up immediately and wrapped an arm around her. She let her head fall against his shoulder. "We don't- you don't have to talk about it. I just y'know felt like sharing-"

"I forgot about it," she sucked in a breath against his shoulder. "I know I can read. I read every fucking day but I forgot that I liked it. I forgot about all these things I used to take for granted, that there used to be more to life than just surviving." She waved an arm around to gesture at their room, at the life they'd sort of started making for themselves and MacCready felt his heart sink a little deeper in his chest.

"Teach me," he said quietly, suddenly and they both darted back from each other in surprise. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Only if you wanted to. I mean, I can't promise I'd be any good as a student."

"You want to read?" she sounded so incredulous, MacCready had to bite back his flash of annoyance.

"The thing is Nora; I've kind of always wanted life to be more than that too." MacCready met her eyes and hoped she could understand what he was trying to say because he was completely shitty at words. That ever since they'd helped Duncan, he'd wanted to think of life as finally more than just survival and scrounging for every last cap too. That the world outside might never care about these little things the way she did but MacCready would. And so would Duncan and their friends. It might not be the same. But it could be enough. It could be good. For her and his son, MacCready would try his fucking damnedest to make it good.

And he'd try for himself too.

"We can- you can," he floundered. "Nora, we can make it more. We can make it anything you want."

She blinked her big brown eyes at him, surprise still clearly etched into her features. For a moment, MacCready thought that he'd done a piss poor job of explaining himself and she didn't really get how he felt after all- but then she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and laughing.

"You're such a sap, Mac," she gave him her best wobbly grin. And really, MacCready should take personal offense at that, Nora of all people calling him a sap but she pressed her grin to his lips and he decided that he could let her have this one. Just this once.

"I'll teach you," she breathed out when they parted. "It'll be fun, I swear. It'll be good."

"It'll be good," he repeated with a smile. It felt like a promise.

In the end, reading wasn't as easy as loading a gun (at least not to MacCready) and once he got his letters down he realized that spelling made no fucking sense at all. Not a single fuck's worth of sense. And now Nora had the added incentive to not only carry out books but also paper. So much paper. The fact that at least paper didn't weigh much only made feel a little bit better. It didn't take long either, for their regulars to realize that Nora was willing to pay caps, good hard-earned caps, for shi- stuff like extra pens or ink.

But when MacCready would spell out words, clumsy and awkward, and Nora would run her fingers through his hair while gently correcting him as they lounged on their damp mattress; he thought of having Duncan with him again to share this. He thought he could almost imagine the rest of their lives this way. It made the trying worthwhile.

* * *

 **A/N:** Written for a prompt on the fallout kink meme. Confession time: I haven't actually finished Fallout 4 :P But I love MacCready and couldn't resist so I tried to make the timeline as vague as possible. I think I made it a little too vague? Oh well. I hope you guys like it!

Also the title comes from the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith.


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